XLIV. 1840. CHAP. 1200 workmen in the Place Maubert and the Faubourg St Marceau was dispersed by the police, and the municipal guards everywhere cleared the streets, and would nowhere permit more than a few persons to assemble together. 38. Vigorous measures ment to 7. Seriously alarmed, the Government now took the most vigorous steps to guard against the danger. The garrison of Govern of Paris, already 40,000 strong, was rapidly reinforced dur suppress the ing the night by fresh troops, marched in from Versailles, insurgents. Fontainbleau, St Cloud, Courbevoie, and all the adjoinSept. 5 and ing towns; and at daybreak on the following morning all the principal posts in Paris were strongly occupied. In the place in front of the Hôtel de Ville, in the Carrousel, the Place Louis XV. and Vendôme, on the Pont Neuf, the Marché des Innocents, and the Place of the Bastile, large bodies of troops, horse, foot, and cannon, were placed. The générale beat in all the streets to summon the National Guard to their posts; those from the banlieue were hurried in as they had been when they rendered such effective service on occasion of the insurrection in the Cloistre de St Méri in 1832. The spirit of insubordination was repressed by this display of military force; and Government, taking advantage of the general alarm, subjected the persons brought to trial to very long periods of imprisonment. On the 12th September forty-six combined workmen were condemned in the short space of three hours; and on the 15th, thirty-three stone-masons were convicted, and sentenced to various periods of imprisonment. All the sentences were confirmed by the Cour Royale on the 1st October. By these severe measures the Moniteur, danger was surmounted for the time; but the root of the malady was not extracted, and it remained festering in the working classes till it at length acquired such strength as to become irresistible.1 Sept. 12. Sept. 15. Oct. 2, 1840; Re gnault, i. 197, 198. Various causes contributed to produce this general and violent outbreak among the working classes in France at this time; and the recurrence of a similar crisis eight CHAP. 1840. 39. which pro among the classes. years after is eminently descriptive of those which were most instrumental in bringing it on. In the first place must be ranked the extreme subdivision of landed property, the result partly of the old consuetudinary cus- Causes tom of the country in some provinces anterior to the duced this Revolution, partly of the effects of that convulsion, which outbreak overspread the land, as a similar subdivision of farms working had done in Ireland, with a vast and indigent peasantry. In the next place, the want of any legal provision for the poor in the country drove the working classes in undue proportion into the towns, where the numerous and magnificent hospitals and public establishments for the relief of suffering promised to afford that succour which they could not find in their own districts. In the third place, owing to the confiscation of the landed estates, and the almost total destruction of commercial wealth and realised capital during the Revolution, the money to be spent in these towns, when the people did arrive there, was much less than it should have been, or than was adequate to take off the surplus hands of the country. 40. causes which c. lxxxix. But in addition to these, which may be called the permanent causes that lowered the remuneration of labour Temporary in France, there were two of temporary influence, but sur- also conpassing strength, which operated at the particular time curred. when these disturbances broke out. The first of these was the cessation of the conscription, and of the sanguinary wars of Napoleon, by the peace of 1815. Between 1792 1 Hist. of and 1815, four millions of young men had been drawn Europe, into the army, and cut off, in France, of whom above a § 66, where million had perished in the years 1812, 1813, and 1814.1 are given. These prodigious drains, amounting on an average to above 200,000 a-year, had had a very great effect during the war in producing a scarcity of hands, and consequently elevating the wages of labour, not only while it lasted, but for twenty years after it had come to an end, from the lessened number of those who during that period rose up the numbers XLIV. 1840. 1 Hist. of Europe, c. lxxiv. $ 70. CHAP. to manhood, from the diminished marriages which had gone on during the war. The conscription all at once ceased in 1812 and 1813 to be productive, because it then came to be levied among the generation whose fathers and mothers were married during the great levy of 1,200,000 men in 1793.1 The converse of this now took place. In 1840, and a few years preceding, the effect of the cessation of the conscription, and consequent multiplication of marriages from 1815 to 1820, appeared in a great and unexpected increase of young men from 18 to 23 years of age; that is, at the very time when their presence was most likely to affect the labour market and augment the general competition for employment. 41. general mo 2 Ante, c. xxxvii. §§ 4-28. The second cause of a temporary nature which at this Effect of the time depressed the wages of labour, and enhanced the netary crisis. competition for employment in France, was the monetary crisis, already made the subject of ample commentary in connection with the history of England during this period. As the drain of the precious metals to the United States, which that in some measure produced, brought both the Bank of England and that of France to the verge of insolvency, the effect was immediate in producing a violent contraction of the currency in both countries, and proportional reduction in the price of commodities of all sorts, and in the general remuneration of labour. people felt, and felt in the most sensible way, the general depression of wages, but they were ignorant of the causes to which it had been owing; and, guided entirely by the Liberal leaders, ascribed it all to the monopoly enjoyed by the capitalists in the legislature, and the absence of that check upon their encroachments which an extensive measure of parliamentary reform could alone afford. The How much soever Government, supported by a large majority in the Chamber, might despise the impotent clamour of the unrepresented labouring classes, they were too well aware of the danger of "Stomach Rebellions," as Lord Bacon calls them, and violent commotions among the XLIV. 1840. 42. ure of the vate rail in France. working classes in the metropolis, not to feel the necessity CHAP. of doing their utmost to augment the employment which might be afforded to them. The railways presented the most obvious resource in this emergency. Hitherto they Total failhad been chiefly if not entirely intrusted, as in Great attempt to Britain, to private companies. But whether it was that the make pri management of them had been faulty, or that capitalists way lines were distrustful of the returns to be expected from the lines, they had been for the most part unsuccessful; the requisite subscriptions could not be got, and France was still almost entirely without this great element of modern civilisation. Here, as in everything else in France, it had been found that Government must take the lead, otherwise the undertakings would fall to the ground. One line only of the eight magnificent ones which had been contemplated in 1838, that from Paris to Bâle, had been completed. All the rest were unfinished or abandoned. Even the one from Paris to Orléans had been finished only as far as Juvigny. What rendered this deplorable state of things the more humiliating, and even dangerous to France, was, that all the other Continental states-Prussia, Austria, Saxony, Bavaria-had constructed lines through their territories, which not only threatened to divert a large part of European inland commerce from France, but, in the event of hostilities, might give them a great military xxiii. 268, advantage, by enabling them to accumulate their forces in 273; Rea few days against any point of the frontier which they 119, 121. selected for attack.1 1 Ann. Hist. gnault, i. Impressed with these ideas, Government, soon after the 43. ment under lines. April 7. accession of M. Thiers to the head of the administration, The Governresolved to step forward and revive this great branch of take the national industry by itself undertaking the chief part of the work. The original plan was to take two-fifths of the shares of the chief lines, and to advance the requisite funds at 4 per cent, from the resources of the State. These proposals were very considerably modified in the committee to which they were referred, and were not finally VOL. VII. 2 F XLIV. 1840. June 16. CHAP. voted till the 16th June. At length, after a very long discussion, and the consideration of repeated modifications, it was agreed by both Chambers to undertake on the part of Government such engagements as would secure the completion of the principal lines. The Government was to guarantee the interest in advances requisite to complete the Orléans line; to advance funds for those of Bâle and Roanne; to undertake the one from Nismes to Montpellier, and that of Lille and Valenciennes to the Flemish frontier, and to advance 14,000,000 francs (£560,000) towards the completion of that from Paris to Rouen. At the same time, a canal was voted by the Chambers to unite the Aisne and the Marne; the improvement of the navigation of the Saône from Verdun to Lyons was undertaken; and the canal of the Upper Seine completed. Twenty-five millions of francs (£1,000,000) were voted to establish lines of steamers from Havre to New York, from Nantes to Brazil, and from Marseilles to Mexico. The steamboats on these lines were accordingly estab lished, but they have never been able to rival the magnifi xxiii. 268, 271; Reg 1 Ann. Hist. cent steam-packets established by private enterprise in Great Britain, and which have done so much to shorten the passage to the United States, until at length it has been reduced to ten or twelve days.1 nault, 124, 128. 44. state of in conse quence. The burdens thus undertaken by the French GovernDisastrous ment were, however, attended with very great embarrassthe finances ment to the Treasury. The budget of 1840, accordingly, exhibited a great and alarming deficit. The estimated expenditure amounted, including 72,000,000 francs for public works, to no less than 1,411,885,000 francs. The revenue was only 1,341,885,000 francs, leaving a deficit of 170,000,000 francs, to be supplied by additions to the floating debt, which already amounted to 700,000,000 francs. This deficit was still farther augmented in the following year, both by a great extension of the railway lines, and the enormous armaments which M. Thiers had prepared to withstand the European coalition, the charges |